All posts tagged ‘Books’

Two years ago I set myself a New Year’s resolution to write in the margins of my books. At least a little. Well, a year later I admitted that it didn’t go so well. Part of me doesn’t remember to write in books, and part of me just resists doing anything that feels like “defacing” a book. On the other hand, I do think it’s cool to come across marginalia in used books, to see what other people have written or highlighted or found interesting.

Dr. Melanie Ramdarshan Bold from Loughborough University is currently running a survey about marginalia, asking questions about your reading habits (digital or paper? work or pleasure?) and your attitudes about writing in books (or “writing” in ebooks). Whether your books are all pristine or you dogear your pages (shudder), go take a few minutes to fill out the survey!

The Gathering brings together many of the original Magic: The Gathering artists to celebrate the game’s 20th anniversary.

Believe it or not, Magic: The Gathering — the first and still bestselling collectible card game — is about to turn 20 years old. To celebrate, Jeff A. Menges — one of the original artists for the game’s beautiful cards — decided to drum up interest in a book of brand-new art created by the group of artists who banded together to decorate the first year’s worth of cards starting two decades back. Full Steam Press launched a Kickstarter to publish this book on February 26, and the drive has already raked in more than double its original goal of $32,000.

The drive for The Gathering, as the book is titled, wraps up on March 28, and it’s bound to cross a number of stretch goals between now and the finish, adding even more benefits to the backers. I took the chance to interview artist Pete Venters about the project.

“Morrox, Demon Prince of Goblins” by Pete Venters. The image combines his long history of goblins pieces with his Legends card “Hellfire.”

Pete Venters: A little background: While the idea of getting all the original Magic artists back together for a project had certainly been talked about by many of us over the years, it was Jeff A. Menges who took the iniative to track everyone down. He collected everyone in a Facebook private group to pitch to us the idea of an art book to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Magic: The Gathering. One of the things he really wanted, and what fired up everyone, was that the book would feature a brand-new painting from each of the contributing artists.

Jeff’s ensuring the book is laid out, printed and delivered in a timely fashion. I’m running the Facebook and Kickstarter pages, which is more of a full-time job than people might imagine.

Matt Forbeck: How did you manage to get permission from Wizards of the Coast for this book?

PV: We’d started thinking about the art book as something where Magic was recognized as part of our collective past but wasn’t directly addressed as we didn’t want to step on Wizards’ copyright “toes.” But eventually we reached a point where we said “Let’s just run it past Wizards and see if they’re good with this.” They were.

They’ve actually been remarkably supportive and all we had to do was ensure they had some oversight. After all, we’re playing in their sandbox.

“The Conflict Continues” by Ron Spencer, a retrospective of a variety of his works.

MF: How did you select the artists? Was there anyone who wasn’t able to join you?

PV: Jeff set the parameters. There were some that wanted it to just be the Alpha artists and there were those, like me, who wanted to expand the list out to Ice Age, that was released in mid ’95. It was decided that the artists would be selected from those who were working within the first year of the game, so an artist had to have a card in print by the end of ’94 to qualify.

It was hard having a cut-off, but there had to be a line in the sand somewhere. And since the book was for Magic‘s 20th anniversary, taking an artist selection that was almost a snapshot of those working in Magic by the end of 93 seemed to make sense. We tried to contact everyone. Most were very enthusiastic, a couple weren’t interested and unfortunately at least one couldn’t take part due to poor health.

MF: Who was the hardest artist to track down?

PV: Well, I think there may still be a couple we could never find, but the hardest artist to track down — who we did eventually find — was none other than Anson Maddocks, one of the major contributors to the first year of Magic. He’d moved to another town, barely used email, and the only phone number any of us had for him was an old one! We caught up with him by sheer luck.

“Urborg Unleashed” by Bryon Wackwitz, based off the Legends card “Urborg.”

MF: Is there any chance for backers to choose to take delivery at Gen Con instead?

PV: We’re shooting for a September release so it’s unlikely. However, if we manage to run ahead of schedule we’ll definitely consider it. One of our big goals with this Kickstarter is to not disappoint people with unfulfilled promises, so we won’t commit to it unless we know we can do it.

MF: What would be the best event to go to if you wanted to collect signatures in your book?

PV: The artists are so spread out across the country that it’s hard to say. September seems so far away! However, if I was a betting man, I’d put money on something happening somewhere in Seattle as we have a very high number of Magic artists in the area, which is not surprising since this is also home to Wizards of the Coast.

“The White Tree” (seen here for the first time) by Randy Asplund, based off “Elven Fortress” from Fallen Empires.

MF: The Kickstarter has done well so far, blasting past all sorts of goals. Is there any chance for a sequel book, one that could include later Magic artists?

PV: It’s not impossible, but one of the things about that very early group of artists was that they all started before the game was big and all lived through the bizarre times of its exponential growth where we each went from being just another freelance artist to being the peeps with huge autograph lines. That sudden stardom was a shared experience and there’s still a bond there, a little community of artists who lived through the craziest of times. So, while a book featuring later artists is not out of the question, I think there may be more chance of other projects featuring this old guard. But let’s get The Gathering out the door first!

Disclaimer: I’m friends with a number of the artists who worked on this book, and I just completed writing a year’s worth of Magic: The Gathering comics for IDW.

This Kickstarter is for the reprinting of a 1911 Engineer’s Handbook, a 1911 Field Guide and a 1912 Field Guide. These were simple, utilitarian books, meant to be kept in breast pockets and used daily. They’re 3.5″x5″ and 32 pages long. That’s 30 ‘bots per book and two pages of statistics, delivery ranges, notes on optimum soil moisture & more.

With less than 24 hours to go, if you want in on the field guides, you’d better act fast. The campaign has already hit its 200% stretch goal and everyone who backs it will get a fourth book: the Official Wrylon Robotical Ready-To-Use Notebook, with a full-designed cover and 32 blank, grid-ruled pages ready for your own ‘bot designs.

The GeekDad community at Wired.com is committed to helping you raise geek generation 2.0. Back in March, we posted a list of our favorite books to read aloud to our kids before the age of ten. The post turned out to be a bit of a crowd-pleaser. Many educators and parents asked us to put together a printed version of “67 Books Every Geek Should Read to Their Kids Before Age 10.”

While we never intended this to be a comprehensive list of what you should read to your kids, we certainly missed some obvious choices. After we published our list, we received a huge number of wonderful suggestions from readers. Their suggestions were placed into a second post, “Books Geeks Should Read to Their Kids: Your Additions to Our List.“

Here is a list that you can highlight, download, pass on to your friends and take with you to your local library. All the while knowing your children are getting the geeky goodness they deserve. Enjoy and Happy Reading!

One of a group of books suggested by reader Anne to improve the diversity of our list

Last Friday, GeekDad published 67 Books Every Geek Should Read to Their Kids Before Age 10. Consider it the geek section of your own virtual library. The idea was to let GeekDad writers suggest their favorite books to read to their children, and create a list of staff picks for you to use when looking for something to read together.

For me, the comment stream became the most enjoyable part of the whole post. It was like a trip down memory lane! Great suggestion after great suggestion. Frankly, it was too juicy of a peach not to highlight somehow. So here without further ado are your additions to the Books Every Geek Should Read to Their Kids Before Age 10. (The books are grouped in a few pages, categorized by the readers who recommended them.)

At GeekDad we are committed to helping you raise geek generation 2.0, and we believe few things that you do are more important than reading to your kids early and often. The social science is in, vocabulary is a major predictor of cognitive development in your children. Reading to them is a great way to get them using the language centers of their brain. Plus some of the best times we have had with our children have come while watching their eyes glisten as Harry looks in the Mirror of Erised or listening to their giggles as they discover the joys and absurdities of Shel Silverstein’s poetry. Reading aloud to your kids can be a blast.

So what books should geeks be reading to their kids? What books are essential to the geek experience? Well, that depends on the parent, and that depends on the kid. Some kids can handle the long slog to get Frodo to Rivendell where The Lord of the Rings finally takes off and becomes a rollicking adventure; many kids (and adults) cannot. So rather than creating a single list of recommended books, we decided to let members of the GeekDad team create the list of books which they enjoyed reading to their hatchlings as they progressed through their beta period. Consider these the staff picks at your own personal geek library:

Ever think about writing your own children’s book? I have, for many years, actually. Last year, I finally followed through and produced one called Smart Aleck. Here are the steps I took from concept to finished product (in the video below, you can see exactly what the finished product looks like in much more detail). Continue Reading “How to Self-Publish Your Very Own Children’s Book” »

I like books and I want my kids to like books. If you are obsessive like me, you may have the urge to catalog those books. Or maybe, in this age of online information consumption, you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to read more books and want to track what you’ve read. Or maybe you want a place where the grandparents can see what books the kids have, so you don’t end up with multiple copies of The Cat in the Hat. Or maybe you want to share your reading habits with your friends.

I explored six sites designed to help you track your book reading and ownership:

Bujold is the author who pulled me back into reading science fiction. I read the classics growing up, with Robert Heinlein a particular favorite, but after a while, it was difficult to find excellent science fiction that also featured three-dimensional characters. Then a fellow romance writer insisted I read Cordelia’s Honor.

It’s the story of how Cordelia Naismith, a women from a completely open galactic culture, and Aral Vorkosigan, a man from a brutal backward planet, fall in love and then try to bring the best of both their cultures together to change Aral’s planet for the better. What I love most about Bujold’s work is how unpredictable it is. Aral and Cordelia are on opposite sides of a war, yes, but that doesn’t play out the same as any other book that I’ve read. There’s intense action but the consequences of those actions are fully explored. At the end, I adored these characters and wished their universe was real.

For those looking at the cover above and thinking “David Weber,” I have to apologize. It’s not a particularly good representation of the book. There is a sword but Cordelia doesn’t have a captain’s chair and I can’t recall her ever wearing a green dress. Bujold in general needs better covers.

While Cordelia’s Honor is the first book in the Vorkosigan series, A Civil Campaign is one of the later ones. It’s focused on the romance Aral and Cordelia’s son, Miles. But, like all Bujold’s books, it’s far more than that. The book is a conscious echo of the best Regency romances from Jane Austen and others and, like those novels, explores the culture around them through the prism of the romance.

It also has one of the most embarrassing and yet funniest dinner scenes I’ve ever read. Poor Miles. Even though he deserves it.

Linnea Sinclair’s Gabriel’s Ghost and Finder’s Keepers. I recommended Sinclair’s books for the holiday gift guide as well as she’s one of my current favorite writers. She combines the fast-pace and the detailed world building of galactic science fiction with an excellent romance. It’s a hard combination to pull off and Sinclair does it with panache and fun.

Catherine Asaro’s Primary Inversion and Quantum Rose. A Nebula-award winning author, Asaro has a PhD. from Harvard in physics. Her galactic stories of the Skolian Empire showcases that knowledge. These are two of my favorites. Quantum Rose is a good place to start as it’s told mostly from the point of view of a women on a rural planet who must find a way to use the newcomers from the Empire to help her people.

Karin Shah’s Starjacked. Shah is an author I found through an online group dedicated to SF Romance. She had a free short story available on her blog that I enjoyed, especially because of a well-written hand-to-hand fight scene. This is only available in ebook form but for those looking for a last-minute gift, that might be an advantage since it can be downloaded instantly.

The Key by Pauline Baird Jones. Jones counts among her readers a rocket scientist who works for NASA. The heroine of this book is an Air Force pilot who crashes on an inhospitable planet during an intergalactic war.

For those who are woefully short of funds this year, there are still options.

The Baen Free Library includes books by Bujold, Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, David Drake and David Weber, among many others. And The Gutenberg Project has a ton of free science fiction in the public domain. Of course, it’s not all romance, but among the many authors there’s likely to be something that she will enjoy.

With Make It So: Interaction Design Lessons From Science Fiction, authors Nathan Sherdoff and Christopher Noessel give us an in depth survey of the best ideas that sci-fi movies have to offer for creating user interfaces. The premise of the book is that real world designers can learn a lot from the blue sky interfaces created for sci-fi productions — interfaces unfettered by the constraints of “modern” day technology.

If you like the way your favorite Web site or computer application works, thank a user experience professional. User Experience (Ux for short) is the practice of designing interfaces with the people who will actually be using them in mind. Ux professionals sweat the details of form and functionality to deliver interfaces that feel so natural you don’t even have to think about them. Ux designers are most successful when you notice their work the least. Continue Reading “Make It So Takes User Interface Design Into the Final Frontier” »